President Trump — who regularly denounces anything he dislikes as “fake news,” even when it is accurate — is now demanding that Smithsonian Institution museums undergo an overhaul to present a fake version of history that erases America’s flaws.

This is a dangerous assault on truth, the type of action authoritarian rulers take. It sounds like something out of George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984,” where a totalitarian regime censors the news to distort the present and destroys historical records to rewrite the past to conform to the views of the all-powerful dictator known as Big Brother.

Trump, who seems to act as if he wants to be the Big Brother of 2025, has appointed himself America’s chief arbiter of what is fit to display in national museums.

Like the authoritarian leaders he envies for their unchecked power, Trump has a boundless desire to exercise unchallenged control over every aspect of life in his country. This is why he demands to dictate not just what the Smithsonian displays, but what the news media reports, by filing lawsuits and restricting their access to him; what foreign leaders do, by imposing tariffs on their countries; and what universities teach, by withholding billions of dollars in federal funds.

It is also why he has sent........

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